they won't see me run
by supernovas
Summary: "The problem is Albus never stays until the morning, and by now you have decided that really there's nothing worse than waking up in the morning to an empty bed." —There are problems which come hand in hand with falling in love with Albus Potter. /alscor


in the morning light  
let my roots take flight  
see me fall above  
like a vicious dove

—_tiptoe, imagine dragons_

—

The problem is he never stays until the morning, and by now you have decided that really there's nothing worse than waking up with arms reaching out to an empty bed.

The nights pass in a tangled mess of silver limbs and whispered promises and every time the clock strikes midnight, you will wind your arms around the broken boy beside you, clinging to Albus as if his haunted eyes are your anchor.

But by the time you wake up, and the dawn light spills through half drawn curtains, the bed is empty, and you can't help but wonder if your lifeline has been cut and this is what it feels like to be drowning.

.

The problem is Albus is the kind of boy who smokes cigarettes behind Greenhouse Three and you just happened to be a boy who's a little late to Herbology.

You're never quite sure how it happens – things seem to happen more quickly than most around Albus – but one second you're running to your class and the next you've tripped over your own feet and all you can see is a smirking face above you, complete with a mess of dark hair and emerald eyes which seem to shine.

His smirk widens as you clamber to your feet.

Albus Potter smirks. "Cigarette?" He offers and then somehow and somewhere, it spirals out from there.

It morphs into a maze of pathways which smell like cigarette smoke and dead ends which leave you alone and shivering, craving for another glimpse of green eyes and another brush of lips on your neck. It draws you deeper and deeper into the world of Albus Potter and all of a sudden you decide you don't really want to leave.

.

The problem is Albus is that he is a Slytherin and you're a Ravenclaw, and in a world made of identical sticks and stones, you're two halves which can never really be a whole.

It doesn't matter that he bites the side of your neck as you lie in the grass, under cloudy skies which the stars haven't quite managed to break through, and whispers in your ear that you're _his_; it doesn't matter that you can make him squirm beneath your body, your name rolling of his tongue like honey; it doesn't matter that you could be two boys who may have sort of maybe fallen in love.

It doesn't matter because life isn't a fairytale once the sun comes out and you can see the harsh beauty of it all, you realise that the two of you only really exist under the moon and the myriad of stars which dance above you at night and in the day, once he's left and you're carrying a broken heart big enough for two, you still can't help but love him.

.

The problem is Albus Potter swore a long time ago that he had been reliably informed that he had no heart. And even though he sparks kisses down your spines and traces poetry across your ribs, he won't admit that the ice-man he's become might not be able to help but _feel. _

He claims he's made of clockwork, and that his bones are iron, is blood is oil and his heart is a mess of rusted cogs. He tells you that he's just a machine and even if he wasn't he'd never even think of liking a snotty little Ravenclaw like you.

But sometimes when he falls asleep before you, you can't help but notice the way his hand is always just a little bit linked with yours and that his chest rises and falls and when you press your ear to it, you can hear the steady thump of his heart underneath.

.

The problem is Albus can't admit that he is broken. He can't feel the mutilated mass he's caught up inside himself all this time because he knows that if he does, the wall he's so carefully, painstakingly erected around him will come tumbling down.

And even if he admits he needs it, Albus won't allow himself to be fixed because no matter how much you try to hold him together, he'll always find a new way to tear himself to pieces again.

Sometimes you find him trembling and alone in the corner of the shower rooms and his eyes dart frantically from wall to wall and the floor around him is dark with blood which falls like crimson waterfalls from the words traced onto his arms.

He never lets you take care of him, though. He pushes you away, staining white shirts scarlet, his head turned away because he's crying and for the meanwhile his façade has cracked and the thing with Albus Potter is that he always believes he's gone too far to be mended.

.

The problem is that in the end you're just two boys who shouldn't be in love but are. Your lives are a twisted mess of a labyrinth; they're lives of running and hiding and coming together in an explosion which wracks your bodies until you can pretend that the scars are just love bites and the pain is nothing but a flesh wound.

Maybe in the end you'll both be too broken to repair; maybe one day you'll fall apart, bit by broken bit, but for now you're whole and you're _together _because one morning you wake up and for once your bed isn't empty and there's a boy with dark hair and emerald eyes lying beside you as the dawn light spreads, and together you watch the sun rise.


End file.
